Wim writes: << As I said, I got a bunch of balanciers up to 6 grams. Now I will go for more resistance, when I can find a couple of hours in the hall. >> One other thing you may want to look at is the lubrication in the grub,(spring slot). If there is high friction there, the spring may have so much "stiction" (static friction), that the hammer is bouncing off the balancier. Remove the whippen, clean and lube the grub and see if things change. Make note if there is an indention somewhere along the slot's length and burnish it away. High use pianos often have springs that are digging into the grub after having worn a groove for themselves. This seems more prevalent in pianos made in the last 40 years, and I have wondered if the maple is not as hard as it used to be. Another approach is to swap a non-checking whippen with the nearest neighbor that checks and see if the problem stays or goes with the whippen. If it stays, I would take another look at tail radius and back-check angle. Ed Foote RPT http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC